Have any of you guys (Dhabih included) ever tried out Metacreations/Fractal Design's Painter? I find that it works much better for me than Photoshop for painting and drawing. It tends to give you more of a traditional painted look, which I like. It also naturally introduces texture into your paintings through its brushes. I feel that Photoshop airbrushing tends to come out rather "plastic" looking unless you spend a LOT of extra time on painting textures. (Dhabih obviously doesn't have this problem. I think it appeals more to people who come from a traditional art background, though.

I've also noticed that my tablet (Wacom Intuos) feels MUCH more responsive in Painter. Photoshop can't keep up with lots of short, quick strokes, but Painter catches them all.

Painter is weird prog man. I like the results but the whole floater thing gets on my nerve.

HEy affected, I dont know if you've tried this but if you turn off the option in photoshop that allows you to see the size of the brush while painting it speed the drawing. I have no idea why, but it works for me.

Hey, Funfetus,
I'm running a AMD266/64Mb/2Mb video, and Photoshop tends to turn my quick strokes into straight, broken lines. However, just a couple of days ago, I tried it on my friends PIII-500 and it ran extremely smooth.
I think it's the 2d/3d acceleration (since I don't have any.)

I've tried Painter a few times, its definately much better at capturing real life art materials better than photoshop (since its supposed to and PS is primarily and photo editing/graphic design tool). There's a lot of things going for Painter, but i just never liked working in painter because it seemed clunky and it was kinda slow. I think i'm just used to PS, thats why i didnt try painter more. I wanna give it another go though, i'll wait for the next version of painter then see how it is,
-dhab

Painter is definitely capable of producing photorealistic output, but it's all up to the artist. Painter doesn't have custom brushes? You've got to be kidding me. Painter's brushes are infinitely more customizable than Photoshop's. Painter's "layering" does suck, but when I'm using Painter I'm in more of a "painting" mode, so I tend not to use the "floaters" anyway.

By the way, I'm on a 350mhz PII w/128mb, so I don't think a slow computer is the problem in PS.

I use Painter a lot, myself. Yea, the interface is clunky and the floaters kinda suck, but as for actually painting things I think it's head and shoulders above photoshop.

The main advantage with painter's brushes seems to be the fact that many of their brushes actually take into consideration what's already on the canvas when you're painting with them. It's not just an airbrush putting color over top of more color, but brushes that move the pigment around when you brush over it. This is why you can get more interesting texture and painterly effects.

I'm sure this is also the reason why they have limited support for drawing in different layers. Real brushes don't just add or subtract colors, they change around the state of the canvas, too. I can imagine how they might possibly be able to sort of work this into the layering system, though, since the program can already record your brush strokes in the current version (another unique feature). Maybe it can eventually use recorded scripts to figure out what your brush strokes on one layer would do to what's below it.

In any case, I'm anxious to see what metacreations does with the next release. If they could finally come up with a halfway decent interface and fix the floaters system, this would be a truly amazing program.

Painter 6 is out, I believe. Haven't had a chance to check it out, but I had a lot of fun with 5.0 and 5.5. I don't think it's a better tool for creating than PS, but well ... I have limited experience with both, sorta hard to judge. I think that they both do things extremely differently ... I wouldn't go and call one better necisarly.

One of Painters feature's I'd really like to see implemented in PS is the way you can move the canvas freely. In Photoshop it's pretty restricted, but in Painter, you can just move the canvas so one of it's corners is at the center of the screen. It can be very handy, when the palettes get in the way.

I would say Painter is the second most used program by professional Digital artists. 3D artists tend to use it more than 2D artists, to generate textures. In a raw comparison PhotoShop is the better program, since PhotoShop is pretty much the best program that has ever been written (IMO). But each program has things the other lacks, and for best results you can use each program in the areas where they excel.

I often use Painter for all my main painting, then Photoshop for compositing, because compositing in Painter (except maybe v6) is a nightmare.

Affected:
You never rotate the paper when you draw? Not even slightly? I find that drawing mostly-horizontal lines is difficult, and I always have to turn my paper (or canvas, in Painter) to make it easier.

I read through this post and I thought, "Hey, I have painter" (painter Classic) and I started messing around, and I found that it was alot easier sketching things in painter than it photoshop. It seemed faster.

Painter 6 has some new features that look great, like REAL layers finally. But according to the folks on alt.fractal-design.painter, it has some SERIOUS stability issues. I'm staying away from it for now.